The first item that I needed to do was get the darn truck running right. That required a rebuild of the carb, but now it idles nicely and doesn’t have a hesitation on acceleration.

Now that the exhaust is on, it was time to start some road testing. The first of the “truck” duties was to run a long overdue errand to dump out a trashcan full of grass clippings. When I say long overdue, I think some of those clippings have been in that bin for two summers. It was NASTY!

On the way home, I took a route that ran me down the highway, and I was able to test out the highway speed. I was able to run 70mph and keep up with traffic, but it did take a little bit to get up to speed. LOL

The first “work duty” trip
One of the pics that I sent to the insurance agent.

On Thursday, Cory McMahon came up and hand lettered the panels with my Bret Chrismer’s Mustache Wax signage. I’m a fan of hand lettered stuff because it really is never exact. Both sides are slightly different, which I think is absolutely fitting for the truck.

Cory McMahon made a trip up to letter the panel truck
No turning back now!
The passenger side
The driver side

After getting the truck lettered, and using it to run some errands the past few days, I made the crazy decision to work on it in the 90+ degree heat and high humidity to cover the body with a layer of boiled linseed oil to help preserve the paint and bare metal. It creates a bit of a sheen to the finish but should tame down as it continues to dry out, but it will provide some weather protection. Since this process will be repeated periodically, I figured I’d buy a gallon of the stuff. I think I may have used about a cup! The good news is that I can use the same stuff on the wood bed inside the truck as well as on the stake truck’s bed and rails.

Slinking some boiled linseed oil
Dang it…I forgot to do the bumpers!

I have a bunch of little things that still need to be done, but figured I’d knock out these things while I had some time to mess with it over the weekend.